


Eye of the Beholder (Tales of an Unexpected Courtship)

by factorielle



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-09
Updated: 2010-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-10 00:30:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/factorielle/pseuds/factorielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Izumi/Mihashi. Izumi cares and like Mihashi but knew he couldn't have the pitcher's heart because of Abe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Odd One Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izumi watches; there's no room for him to do anything else.

You've known since the beginning that throughout high school, a large part of your life would revolve around Mihashi. He's the team's pitcher, after all, and your classmate beside. It's normal that you'd be more aware of him than of most people.

Only, you realize one day, very little of his life revolves around you.

You're walking back from the cafeteria with your arms laden with curry bread and other staples of the perpetually starving baseball player's diet, and the scene that greets you when you get to the classroom is perfectly mundane: there's Tajima laughing as Mihashi meekly tries to straighten the facts on whatever childhood story Hamada is telling this time, and Abe looking over all of them, relaxed enough as to barely even scowl.

He's sitting in your chair, and you wonder if there's any space here for you at all. Between the best friend (they're perpetually invited at each other's place), the childhood friend (it used to bother you that they knew each other before you entered the picture, and then it didn't, and now it does again) and the overbearing-mother-cum-catcher (here so often these days that his presence permeats the walls), Mihashi is caught in a three-way tug-of-war for attention that you have no chance of even taking part in. What could you possibly do, walk up to him and explain that you, too, want a privileged relationship with him? He wouldn't get it, wouldn't get _why_, and you haven't quite been able to answer that one either, yet.

Still, the moment he notices you everything seems to fall away and for maybe half a second you relish the way his eyes light up, his attention entirely focused on you. Then the part of you that's (Abe-like) overly analytical points out that of course he'd smile, of course he'd be happy to see you're back: you're bringing him food. The three others looking up at you with similar expressions of joy and gratitude (rather subdued in Abe's case) finish ruining the moment, and you unload all the loot on Tajima's desk.

Hamada, Tajima and even Abe jump on it as one man, each of them trying to sort out their respective orders; in the scuffle, only Mihashi stays back, glancing back and forth between you and the table, and it takes him too many seconds to decide what to do.

When he does, it's to slide closer to Tajima, leaving you an open space between him and Abe, and as you grab yourself a chair you think that maybe this is the only explanation you need.


	2. Breakthrough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mihashi is always worried about not meeting expectations. Which would be fine, if he even knew what the expectations are.

When he wants to do something as a group, Izumi-kun always asks Tajima-kun, who asks you. It's not an exceptional way to behave (less so than someone wanting anything to do with you, anyway), but eventually it starts to nag at you, because all things considered you don't think Izumi-kun dislikes you. (The thought itself feels like a transgression of some kind, but you still can't help thinking it.)

Maybe he does it for your sake, because you find it much easier to respond to Tajima-kun than to anyone else, but if that's the case, he shouldn't have to, not on your behalf. You blurt it out the moment you decide that, and it comes out as "ah, huh, it, it's okay to--" before he stops in the middle of asking Tajima-kun to come over and apply the relaxation technique and turns to you, looking curious. "It," you say, and then nothing else seems to want to come out.

"Mihashi says you should ask him these things directly!" Tajima-kun intervenes, and you flail a little at him because in no way did you ever mean 'should'.

Izumi-kun turns to you, and you feel a thrill that's both fear and a little of something else. "I'll remember that," he says, and you don't know what that means but it doesn't sound too bad. A minute later, when Tajima-kun is laughing under both your hands, your eyes meet for a moment, and Izumi-kun smiles.

That afternoon as you head to practice, you get caught in a war, snowballs everywhere. You're about to try and escape (Abe-kun wouldn't like you to risk getting injured, even in the off-season) when Izumi sidles up to you and says "team up with me" and you want to say yes, of course, never been in a team like that but you know why he asked and he's going to be disappointed, which you try to explain and he shrugs off, too busy packing snow together.

He finds out soon enough what you knew from the start: that your aim is only perfectly accurate when the target is at the exact right distance, mound from home base. So does everyone else, and the entire courtyard turns on you, pelting both of you with snowballs until you've both fallen on the ground, clothes drenched and covered in snow.

"I'm sorry," you try to tell him, because you really are and you should have made more of an effort to tell him.

He gets up, extends a hand to help you, and _smiles_ again. "I don't regret it," he says, and when you grab his hand you don't feel cold at all anymore.


	3. The Baton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abe knows how to step down gracefully from a job he never wanted in the first place.

The status of Mihashi's (potential) romantic relationships is something you're monitoring closely. Mizutani thinks it's creepy, but Mizutani can go fuck himself because he obviously has no experience, therefore no idea how distracting these things can be to a player. If something like that is going to happen, you'll have to know about it, and you can't count on Mihashi to tell you.

So you watch, and that's how you notice that among Mihashi's many-more-than-he-thinks options is one you wouldn't really have considered, but don't disapprove of in principle. Izumi has already shown that he's capable of not breaking Mihashi into a million tiny shards that you'd then have to sweep up, and he wouldn't try to distract him from baseball, nor attempt to make him do stupid things.

This is how their first kiss goes: the whole team is watching a movie in Mihashi's room, recently improved with a large TV set that some relative had the stupid idea to give him, apparently unaware that he seldom has the time to be both awake and in his bedroom. Case in point, he's been struggling against exhaustion since before you even got here, and he falls asleep sitting up after a few minutes. For a while he seems to be able to keep the position, which makes him a freak beyond freaks, which is not news or anything. And then, slowly, he starts sliding to the right.

You're pretty sure it's impossible for anyone to hold their breath for half an hour, but admittedly you're no medical expert and Izumi is putting up a good fight, glancing repeatedly at Mihashi as he falls, inexorably, onto him. He probably has no idea what the movie is about, which you can't really fault him for because neither do you, the show being played in the room a lot more interesting than the one onscreen.

Mihashi wakes up with a start the moment he makes contact, and you shift in your seat with a smirk, because now Izumi is going to learn what it's like to deal with a Mihashi in full panic mode, and then maybe he'll stop being an obnoxious know-it-all about the way you handle him.

Only Mihashi doesn't even seem to have the time to get to it: Izumi says something, two sentences maybe, and you see the flight evaporate from Mihashi's shoulders which, okay, is kind of annoying. If Izumi has a method to make your pitcher calm down so easily, it would have been good manners to share rather than let you marinate in your perpetual exasperation. You'll have to talk to him about that later, but for now he's way too busy, with how close they're looking at each other and you don't realize it at first but you're kind of holding your breath too, waiting to see how this turns out.

You can't see much from where you're sitting, but when it happens it's slow, soft, gentle. Short, too, and you see the panic rise in Mihashi again for a few seconds before Izumi grabs his hand. He settles back, still tense but content to stay where he is for now, leaning the slightest bit against Izumi's shoulder.

It feels a little like giving off your daughter in marriage, but that's the natural order of things. Plus, you're getting kind of tired of making sure that Mihashi eats, sleeps and breathes like a normal human being, and it'll be convenient to delegate.


End file.
